Surge in Nestle (+10.00%) into the close alongside late movements in Stanbic (+7.14%) and FBNH (+5.04%) pulled the market index (ASI, +1.25%) out of its seemingly losing position intra-day. UBA (+3.70%), Zenith (+1.38%), Access (+0.51%) and ETI (+0.79%) all posted positive returns to cap off a decent performance among the banks. However, declines in Guinness (-6.24%) and a few tier 2 banks; Sterlnbank (-5.37%), Wema (-7.25%) tapered the impact of the late optimism seen in the afore-mentioned gainers.
Market turnover was fairly decent at N3bn ($8.4m) buoyed by offshore crosses in Guaranty and local block trades in Access. Ytd returns on the index stood at -15.95%. We expect the trend of late buying to continue as we approach the end of the year.
